Four dozen people swept up in massive Toronto police raid face 300 charges

Four dozen people swept up in massive Toronto police raid face 300 charges

As a clearer picture emerged Friday of the Dixon City Bloods and their litany of alleged crimes, Toronto police shifted the conversation to “Project Clean Slate” — an attempt to rebuild the west-end community shattered by years of gang violence.

Yet police remained officially silent on any link between Thursday’s pre-dawn raids at a Dixon-Kipling apartment complex and the crack cocaine scandal that has engulfed Mayor Rob Ford’s office for the past month, even as another apparent connection surfaced. During a news conference inside 23 Division, police for the first time acknowledged that their investigation into the high-profile slaying of Anthony Smith, who appears in a widely-circulated photograph with Mr. Ford, forms part of Project Traveller, the massive, year-long crackdown that culminated in the Etobicoke raids.

Project Traveller ultimately netted around 300 charges against close to four dozen suspects, ranging from narcotics and weapons offences to participation in a criminal organization, theft, murder and attempted murder.

“There was a neighbourhood here in 23 Division, the Dixon Road community, that was being victimized by a violent gang,” Deputy Chief Peter Sloly said, noting the gang has now been “significantly downgraded.”

One of the suspects stands charged with attempted murder in a May 21 shooting; that same day, shots were fired on the 17th floor of 320 Dixon Road, just outside a unit where sources say the alleged cellphone video of Mr. Ford smoking a crack pipe might have been stored.

Before Thursday’s overnight sweep, police had already charged two men with first-degree murder in a separate March shooting that killed Mr. Smith. Police say they are continuing to work on Project Traveller, with more arrests and weapon seizures expected in the days ahead.

On Friday, dozens of seized handguns and long guns were on display inside 23 Division, and Deputy Chief Sloly said police were determined to keep violence from creeping back into the west-end community. Officers will be focusing on “community mobilization” in the days to come, he said, “making sure that the gang that has been dismantled doesn’t form again, making sure that a new gang doesn’t form in the vacuum.”

Superintendent Ron Taverner called this next phase “Project Clean Slate,” noting officers have been working to foster trust between police and members of Toronto’s Somali-Canadian community in the Dixon-Kipling area.

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“That is the most important part that we face right now, the going-forward piece to deal with the good people that live in that area and to support them,” Supt. Taverner said.

Although questions hung heavy Friday about Mr. Ford’s possible connection to Project Traveller, including whether police seized the alleged cellphone video, reporters asked few aloud. The futility of such inquiries was underscored a day earlier, when Chief Bill Blair refused to address the alleged Ford connection, saying everything would eventually come out in court.

“We will be turning all of that evidence over to the prosecuting attorney [and] it will come out in court where it belongs,” Chief Blair said Thursday. “To do otherwise would, quite frankly, jeopardize the prosecution of those who we allege to be responsible for some very serious criminal offences.”

The mayor, who has maintained for weeks that he has done nothing wrong and does not smoke crack cocaine, lauded the police raids, which took 40 guns off the streets. He also continued this week to disavow the alleged video, saying he has never seen the footage and does not believe it exists.

Omar Farouk, a community leader and president of the International Muslims Organization of Toronto, said this week’s crackdown gave “reassurance” to residents whose neighbourhoods have been plagued by gang violence. Speaking to reporters after Friday’s news conference, Mr. Farouk cited two sides to the relationship between police and the Dixon-Kipling community.

“There will always be mixed feelings, but in the broader sense, I think the community in general is happy because it’s all about safety and protection,” he said. “Who would not want to know that their sons and daughters, when they go to school, they come home safe?”
National Post

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